


Hung up on Roses

by Nitzer



Category: Shinhwa (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Crossdressing, Implied D/S relationship, Implied Sexual Content, Lots of reminiscing, M/M, Verbal Humiliation, commentary on idol culture, kinda fwb relationship, lots of things are vague bc hyesung just refuses to talk about them, not really smut but like close, part jokes and part angst, rose motif, set right after eric gets discharged, the legal battle with sm, the others are barely mentioned, you all know why
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-02
Updated: 2018-11-02
Packaged: 2019-08-16 16:45:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16499063
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nitzer/pseuds/Nitzer
Summary: "I was still playing at being an adult with his own career, I was doing fine without Junghyuk, really. I just didn’t expect him to play this stupid game with me and then disappear. I didn’t expect to not see him at all. But I didn’t really have any expectations for the reunion of Pilkyo and Junghyuk at all so I couldn’t really complain."Eric comes back from military service with gifts, Hyesung isn't very appreciative or an nearly-functional moment in a barely-functional relationship that went on for far too long.





	Hung up on Roses

**Author's Note:**

> i never wanted to write for shinhwa but like sad, old men are kinda my trademark at this point  
> the humiliation kink is barely implied and so is the d/s element but i had to include it bc eric's always being a nasty sub on camera  
> you all know the rose incident referenced constantly in here, it's like THE ricsyung moment

The box itself is absolutely unremarkable. It’s plain, brown cardboard wrapped up with white twine, it’s so unassuming and uninteresting that it almost come back around to shabby-chic. It’s not the box that catches my eye, if it was in a pile of fanmail I probably would’ve sifted right past it. The box makes stop in my tracks because it is _not_ in a pile of fanmail that my manager delivered to me, it’s _not_ from a PO box somewhere. It’s sitting on the door step of my apartment. It doesn’t even have an address on it. Someone _had_ to hand deliver it.

Which is like pants-shittingly terrifying when you’re an idol on hiatus. It’s even worse when you’re approaching forty and your fans haven’t really been this bad since you were still young and fresh-faced and not a “living legend” or whatever. So I’m frozen in the hallway of my apartment complex, one ear bud dangling at my thigh, phone in my hand, genuinely afraid it might actually explode. But the security is pretty good in my building and I had to enter like three codes just to get this far, I’m probably fine. It’s just weird—suspicious, worrying.

I kick it gently before I pick it up just in case (in case of what, I really don’t know). It doesn’t even rattle, seems light too. I want to call my manager to see if he can explain this or one of the other members to see if they’re getting the same thing. I’m a Shinhwa member on hiatus, though and it’s really the only time I have to be independent. Maybe I should try it.

The package doesn’t explode when I pick it up. It doesn’t do anything actually. It’s light like I thought too. And when I shake it all I hear is a barely audible rustling. It’s probably not gonna hurt me and the fans that would even pull that shit in the first place have probably moved on to Super Junior or maybe SHINee, poor kids. I toss the box carelessly on my kitchen counter just to get it out of my mind.

It won’t stop staring at me from the counter, though. I can’t get it off my mind. So I’m back to sitting down with it less than an hour later, carefully untying the twine on the outside. The box opens up to folds and folds of rose-pink silk and a line of white faux-fur. It’s unbelievably tacky before I even unfold it to find out what it is. When I do, a single square of paper flutters down from the full-length, silk robe (the fact that it’s a robe only makes it _tackier_ ). _For our Pilkyo_ , it reads and I don’t even have to read the only other line of text on the paper to know who it came from. There was only one person in the entire world who _could_ leave something on my doorstep and would leave something so tacky and would call me “our Pilkyo.” But I read the last line anyway, _Junghyuk_.

The horrid robe could just be a joke—really—our leader was weird, always had been. There was nothing that brought Junghyuk more joy than blowing money on a joke gift for one of us. But there aren’t any cameras around and there won’t be for a while. There aren’t really any members either. The only people around to laugh at this are me and him. And I’m not. Because “Junghyuk” addressed it to “our Pilkyo” and that means something entirely different. It separated the whole thing from the fans, the public, from _Shinhwa_. This was between Pilkyo—something Junghyuk always kept close to his chest and rarely called me so I would melt every time he did—and Junghyuk—what I called him for years and years and years until I could finally wrap my tongue around the foreign “Eric” and not feel like it was so unsuited to him.

The silk feels ice cold under my hands because this is something entirely different. Sure, we played around as kids in a too-cramped dorm. It was either hurried handjobs and frantic rutting in the shower or actually punching each other’s teeth out. So we picked the less destructive option. Junghyuk was just so _infuriating_ —so arrogant, so weird, so messy, so forgetful. I always just wanted to wipe that stupid smirk off of his face, wanted to bite him so hard he’d _yelp_ sometimes. But he liked it too much when I got close, liked it too much when I pushed my hand into the center of his chest and backed him into a wall. And the low purr he let out when I actually bit him was sweeter than the yelp I imagined. It was easy to fool around to let go of that tension. It was easier than fighting at least.

Fooling around in the dorms, trying to avoid the watchful eye of the company didn’t require dressing up, though. This is undeniably and exclusively for Junghyuk too. He’s the only one I could think of that would find a silk robe with fur trim anything other than hideous and I hated pink and he knew it. The tension I had with Junghyuk was set on the backburner anyway with the hiatus, everyone else in military and the drawn-out legal battle with the company. I don’t want to bite him so hard he bleeds. He hasn’t even been particularly annoying recently (aside from _this_ ), if anything I’m mildly worried about how exhausted he’s been looking.

I crumple up the robe and toss it in a heap in the corner of my bedroom, not knowing where else I can put it out of sight until I get the chance to throw it out or throw it back in his face. _Get a doll if you wanna play dress-up so fucking bad_ , I text him in a huff. I watch the little “1” next to the message disappear instantly. There’s no reply but I can _feel_ the smug overconfidence radiating down from his apartment.

Despite Junghyuk literally being a floor away and him finally being back, being discharged, I don’t have a lot of opportunity to throw his stupid robe back at him. He’s just been discharged and there’s a lot to take care of when you’ve been gone that long. Plus the legal battle is just starting and even if there’s not much we can do until everyone else is discharged, Junghyuk is still doing what he can by himself. I have a solo career to worry about, so does he and everything just piles up until we’re both buried under busy schedules and I don’t even catch him in the elevator sometimes.

I don’t know what it’s like to come back after two years, to have to restart things. I remember what it was like to be left behind, though. I remember when Junghyuk first enlisted and the unease was just starting to creep under my skin. Then Dongwan was gone and I realized that I was always making more food than I could eat and kept picking up snacks that the others liked at the grocery store. I ended up at Sunho’s apartment more nights than I’d like to admit, teary-eyed and a little tipsy, feeling like everything was slipping through my fingers and I couldn’t stop it. Then Sunho and Choongjae were gone too and I was alone—really, truly _alone_ —stumbling into my solo career because I had to, because I was the last one left.

Maybe I was a little dramatic back then or maybe I was still a barely-formed adult who built his entire life around the other five only to have them ripped away. We’re years past that anyway. Independence feels more like a fun game I’m playing at rather than a foreign land I’ve accidentally wandered into. Even though Junghyuk is back I’m not itching to squeeze back into his life. I’m doing OK and I figure he needs his space too, probably having fun being just Eric instead of Eric-of-Shinhwa for a little bit too. It’s just the crumpled pink silk of the robe sitting in the corner of my room that makes me wanna see Junghyuk again.

There’s another box sitting neatly on my doorstep. There’s a pink rose tucked cutely into the twine this time. It doesn’t panic me anymore, I know the annoying little shit that’s pulling this now. Instead of gaping at it and stalking around it like some kind of scared animal I walk right up to it and kick it into my closed door. Whatever’s in there shouldn’t break, probably another piece of whatever stupid costume Junghyuk was putting together. And even if it did, it was on Junghyuk, I certainly didn’t _want_ whatever was in the package.

I’m more curious about where Junghyuk found the time to buy whatever’s in the box and put it together and leave it on my doorstep when I don’t even see him around the complex anymore than what’s in the box. But I open it anyway. The silky lace barely fills up the bottom of the box and I can see the note tucked into the box through the cloth this time. The silky lace makes up a set of cream-colored thigh-high stockings with a band of patterned lace at the top. They’re tacky and old-fashioned and would absolutely clash with the stark-white of the fur trim on the robe. If Junghyuk’s playing dress-up he’s doing a terrible job with it. The note just says, _You’d look good in this_ and it’s still signed “Junghyuk.” I’m surprised he dropped the “Pilkyo” this time because that was the most charming thing about this mess anyway. (But, in some ways, the rose replaces that even if it should be red instead of pink.)

At least I have a place to drop the monstrosities this time and they end up in the corner with the robe. I don’t expect a reply when I finally sit down to text Junghyuk. I just want him to know that I’m annoyed. _I don’t even look good in girl’s clothes_ , I text him, _we know this too. I look like someone’s horrible step mom or something._ I throw my phone down to the side of my bed and huff out an annoyed sigh. I pick it back up to complain about the color too but there’s already a reply.

_It was just a bad wig, you looked good_.

I snorted “bad wig” my ass, my face was just unsuited to heavy makeup like that. I went from “cute fairy prince” to “weird and kind of horrifying alien” with just a few extra brush strokes. _The stockings don’t even match the robe_ , I bitch, _if you wanna dress me up at least pick out nice clothes._

_So you’ll let me dress you up?_ He responds, there’s an intrigued-looking emoji attached to the message.

This time I leave him on read. I don’t wanna encourage the smug bastard anymore than I have.

I figure that I’ll see Junghyuk more after the second package. If he’s got time to pull all of this then he has time to see me. Instead he stays a ghostly, barely-there presence in the group chat which is mostly empty with more than half the members still enlisted. The legal battle seems like more of a headache than initially anticipated too. I can tell that the short messages Junghyuk leaves about the process in the group chat are only half the story. He always liked keeping things to his chest until he had to tell someone. And I’m sure it’s taking all the time he has outside of his solo comeback.

I knew how Shinhwa would come back together, how Hyesung and Eric would come together after the hiatus. We’d all drive to pick up the last member being discharged and take a million publicity photos and then we’d go out to that bar we all like and get plastered to celebrate and then we’d all get too touchy, a little bit weepy and then plan the comeback in the morning. I never thought about how Pilkyo and Junghyuk would come back together. I guess after looking out for my solo career and learning how to live singularly, as one person looking out for himself, I never considered that Junghyuk would be back first. That he’d be back upstairs before anyone else was even in the city. That he’d be just out of reach, playing stupid games with me when I barely got texts from the others. It felt like I wasn’t ready for what was already happening, felt like I never planned it out well enough.

Before Junghyuk left for service, he was always over. It was always making dinner with Junghyuk, sending leftovers to him, ordering take out when both of us were too tired to cook. He was always bringing beer down to listen to music or talk music or watch golf matches. Maybe both of us were just trying to hastily fill the hole that living on our own left. Going from six teenagers in cramped quarters to you by yourself in a nice apartment was a shock to me at least. Or maybe it was some kind of unspoken draw, we had always been close when we weren’t so close that I wanted to slam him into a wall just to make him listen. It was easier that we were in our own apartments too. He was less infuriating when I wasn’t constantly tripping over his messes or watching him never put things back in the right place. For whatever reason it happened, Junghyuk was always over. My apartment ended up smelling more like his brand of cigarettes than mine. (It was something that I didn’t mind.)

I wasn’t itching for Junghyuk to jump back into my life, I had gotten over my withdrawals way before he got discharged. The smell of his cigarettes faded barely months into his enlistment. And all my clinging loneliness got shifted onto Choongjae and Sunho before I learned how to enjoy being alone, being independent. I was still playing at being an adult with his own career, I was doing fine without Junghyuk, really. I just didn’t expect him to play this stupid game with me and then disappear. I didn’t expect to not see him at all. But I didn’t really have any expectations for the reunion of Pilkyo and Junghyuk at all so I couldn’t really complain.

I’m taking a well deserved bath when Junghyuk makes another ghostly appearance in my life. It’s just a message dropped into the group chat that pops up while I’m trying to watch a drama on my phone. It’s an update on the legal situation and while he makes it sound low key I know it’s not. I know it’s not because the same thing that’s been sitting on the back of all of our tongues’ since this started: SM has done this before and won and we’re just a bunch of kids who signed a contract we barely read when we were teenagers. But Junghyuk is still shouldering it all by himself, barely letting us in on it because the same company that we’re fighting against assigned him the leader role ten or fifteen years ago. 

And underneath all the fuck-or-fight, underneath all the heated frustration, I do feel a warm kind of affection for Junghyuk, an admiration if nothing else. He was the only one to say “we can fight them on this,” the only one to say “let’s be _Shinhwa_ forever.” He was the one I spent the most time with at the end of the day and I was doing ok with the separation now but the longing was still there just buried under the piles of distractions in my mind. So, already in the bathtub, I’m thinking about robes and maybe just trying on the ugly silk one sitting on my floor. The bath already smelled like roses and that always made me think of Junghyuk anyway even if there wasn’t the message in the group chat and the robe waiting on my floor.

Once upon a time there was something more than hurried handjobs and teeth-clashing kisses between me and Junghyuk. It wasn’t for the best, though, a hundred roses can only turn into hundreds of wilted rose petals. It was only safe to love our families and maybe dancing or singing if we could keep the company from turning that against us (but a bunch of lost teenagers rarely could). It wasn’t forbidden to love anyone else, we were encouraged to love our members but it was so easy to let that get out of control. It was so easy to hand over to the company the one thing that they could hold over you forever. It just wasn’t worth it to have a different kind of playing around, playing house at best. And that’s all we’re doing—ever—even when he was buying me roses. We were just playing around—playing at the same thing we were always playing at with fans and models and actresses—we were just playing it differently. We got to touch, and what an _indulgence_ just being able to touch was. 

Touching Junghyuk was always different too. Always electric, always sent a shock through my whole body. I couldn’t find comfort in it like I could with Dongwan or Minwoo, couldn’t feel protective like I did with Sunho and Choongjae. I always felt that electric pulse under my skin when it was Junghyuk, that’s why I hated him touching me in front of the fans. That’s why he loved doing it to tease me too. But that electric spark between us, when we were the only two around, it was...indescribable. So the transition from playing house with the assigned “papa bird” of the group to something less heavy, less committed wasn’t terrible. We had nights out and sometimes his dumb, drunk ass would leave clothes around my apartment. We never stopped kissing, for everything that we couldn’t say any other way. I didn’t need roses and date nights, I didn’t even want them really. (But maybe, also, we were just playing a different kind of house with thin walls separating our apartments and the mingled scent of two different kind of cigarette smoke staining both of us.)

But the scent of roses always meant “Junghyuk” to me. And the rose tucked into the second package. And the color of the robe (as ugly as it was). It was all Junghyuk. And maybe I missed him. Maybe I was feeling too soft towards him. A lot of maybes happened in fifteen years. But maybe this robe wasn’t the ugliest thing I ever wore. Maybe the robe was something that I _could_ wear. Maybe it was a misguided gesture from someone who never knew when to be direct. Maybe it really was sweet or thoughtful. (Or maybe it was just the buried longing or want or whatever that lived in my heart talking.)

The next appearance Junghyuk makes in my life is not ghostly. He’s right there, less than ten feet away in the hallway outside of my apartment. He’s in jeans and a hoodie, barefaced, holding another plain brown box wrapped with twine. There’s a red rose this time. He at least has the decency to look (his approximation I guess of) bashful when his eyes meet mine. His smile is tight and uncomfortable but his eyes are still playful. “Hey, Kyo.”

I’m frozen in my spot, bundled up from the weather outside, sunglasses pushed up on to my head, also barefaced. I’m _pissed_. I’m pissed that he’s still playing this stupid game. I’m pissed that _this_ is the first time in two years that I’m really seeing him. And every feeling that I’ve never acknowledged or defined with Junghyuk boils into uncontrolled frustration. “What’s in this one?” I spit.

“So, you’re curious?” His smile relaxes into a sly smirk. He takes a few steps closer to my door, to me.

“Sure,” I spit out, “I’m really curious what ugly ass thing you spent good money on this time.”

He loses the tension in his shoulders, in the rest of his posture too, the smirk melting into something fond and warm. “It’s like I never left.” He whispers and I feel like it’s not for me at all, like it’s entirely for himself.

“Anyway, keep that one and come get your other shit.” I say harshly, trying to keep the frustration from boiling over into something else. Because he’s still far away enough that I can’t smell the smoke on him, I’m not close enough to reach out and touch. I can still blanket myself in the manufactured contentedness that I built up over two years. And as long as he stays right there, I don’t have to think about everything I buried to build that contentedness.

“You kept the other ones?” His eyes sparkle with hope and wonder.

“I didn’t know which bin to put hideous clothes in.” I hiss, unlocking my door for him and there he is, behind me, close enough to smell his cigarette smoke, close enough to feel his warmth. I know I’m faking the frustration and I know I’m a shit actor.

I’m trying to lead him quickly through the apartment so I can throw the tacky, silky set at his face and get him out. But in the living room he wraps his arm around my waist casually, almost possessively, curling his fingers into my hip and I freeze. I freeze against him, the shock of touching him unexpected after so long and then I instinctively lean into his touch. Because I had forgotten _what_ the shock felt like over the past two years but I had forgotten about the easy way our bodies fit together, about that tangible click when we came together entirely. And it was everything in-between the fucking and the fighting that I had buried, tried to forget. It was the late nights when I passed out on his couch and woke up wrapped in a blanket that smelled like smoke and aftershave and _him_. It was the cozy evenings where Junghyuk spent his time squished against me in the kitchen, helping me chop vegetables for dinner. It was the undefined _softness_ in our relationship that I had to bury to keep it from hurting so bad when he was gone.

If anything, Junghyuk pulls me tighter into him than I fall into him. “I think my birdie’s touch-starved.” He sing-songs.

“You’re not the only one that touches me.” It has no bite, though, comes out as more of a squeak than anything. He’s not the only one that touches me, really—fans, stylists, makeup artists, bodyguards, even Choongjae touched me more recently than Junghyuk. It just didn’t feel like this. No one else sent sparks skittering over my skin or made my heart speed up in the sweetest way.

“That’s not the problem, is it?” He whispers, his mouth close enough that I feel the warmth searing over my skin.

He was right and he knew. He knew because I made no move to get out of his hold, because I wasn’t hissing anymore. I was _melting_.

“You smell good,” he breathes out, “like roses.”

“I missed the smell of your cigarettes.” I admit, an ill-advised confession pulled out of me by his touch. It’s just that all of the feelings I tried to drown are bubbling up to the surface and I can’t do anything about them anymore. The smell of mingled cigarettes is so achingly familiar and I’m choking on longing and want and something that really, really might be love.

“You could’ve switched.” He murmurs.

“I missed _you_.” He finally gets out of me. “I miss _you_ , you stupid asshole but you never came to visit. You just left those stupid packages!”

“I was gone for so long, I figured I should come back with gifts.” He turns me so gently in his hold, like I’m really precious and he’s not just this close to me to get me to shut up.

“Then get me something I like.” I challenge, no bite. He seems so much taller than I remember, pressed up against him like this.

“You don’t know what’s in this box.” He tempts, shaking the last box. It rattles unlike the other ones.

“Your taste is terrible.” I scoff.

“But I remember you telling me I ‘taste so good.’” He pitches his voice up to mimic me like I actually sound like that.

And I ball up my fists to actually push him away, flustered and sputtering but Junghyuk drops the box to grab my wrists instead and he’s kissing me without anything to push me against. It’s never out in the open like this, it’s always against a wall or a counter, in some hotel bed, against the support beams bellow the stage when we’re feeling daring. But he winds one of his arms back around my waist, pulling me against him and he does taste so good. He really does. He tastes familiar and smoky and bitter and I whine low in my throat just because it’s been so long. It’s been so fucking long.

He breaks the kiss to pinch my cheek lightly and smile down at me. “I think my birdie’s missed me.” He coos.

“Maybe I’m just touch-starved.” I toss out flippantly because admitting that I missed Junghyuk was hard enough to say to myself.

“Let me fix that.” And he’s kissing me again and I want so badly not to be needy. I want so badly to not melt at every stray touch, to not feel the whines building in my throat because I want more so bad. His fingers creep under my layers of clothing and he just barely touches my skin but it’s enough to have me whining into his mouth again. “Are you sure you don’t wanna know what’s in the last box?” He asks, lips brushing mine.

“I wanna get fucked and you can’t fit that in a box.” I retort.

“I think you’ll like this one, though.” He tempts and he’s not trying to kiss me in-between words anymore.

“Fine,” I relent, “what is it?” I plop down on the couch and hold out my hands, shrugging off my coat and scarf.

“Open it.” He just puts the box in my hands and watches me expectantly.

I set the rose aside and delicately undo the twine. There’s no cloth to obscure anything or fill up the box this time. There’s just a necklace sitting on top of a scrap of paper. The necklace is delicate, a rose-gold chain with the outline of a rose as the charm. The scrap of paper just says, _Roses still remind me of you_. I bark out a laugh to cover up everything else that was bubbling inside of me. “Still hung up on roses, huh?” I manage like one act didn’t define our entire relationship, like we did anything without thinking about that bouquet of roses from more than a decade ago.

“You like them too, you always smell like roses.” He explains and tucks the stub of a rose gently behind my ear. “Did you try on the robe?” He asks, his face still close enough that he looks dreamy and soft.

“No,” I whisper, “it’s hideous.” I don’t move back because the air between us is crackling and I love challenging him anyway.

“You’ll look so pretty,” he coos, “then we can get rid of it if you don’t like it.”

“Fine.” I sigh. “I’ll try it.” And he smiles, relaxed and fond like only Junghyuk can pull off so well. Maybe it’s Junghyuk who pulls me in for the kiss or maybe I pull him down or maybe it’s the undeniable magnetic draw between us. Regardless, it’s searing and slow, soft lips and a gentle hand cupping my cheek. It’s an _indulgence_ and it’s never soft, it’s never gentle, it’s never _slow_. It’s always rushing and growling, trying to get the upper hand. I never get to enjoy his plush lips or the natural click between us or his overwhelming warmth because I’m always drowning in having power over him, in telling him what to do for once.

“Go on,” he encourages, breaking the kiss but staying close.

I scoff. “Eager to see that monstrosity, are we?” But I push him back into the couch and go to change anyway. The silk feels softer than I remember under my hands. It’s unexpectedly quality, something that couldn’t have been just a joke gift from our weird as fuck leader. It fits me nicely too, not what I expect from something clearly for women.

“So?” I question apprehensively, making my back into the living room all dressed up.

Junghyuk’s off the couch in record time, cupping my face before shifting his hands down to my waist, back up to my shoulders, never seeming to find a place to settle them. “You look _royal_ just like I thought.” He slides his finger down the fur trim, resting just above the belt.

“I look like someone who married for money.” I snort.

“You’re pretty enough to.” His hands settle possessively inside the folds of the robe on the bare skin of my hips. He pulls me back towards the couch until I’m stumbling into his lap, caught and steadied by reliable arms. “You want me to put the necklace on?” He asks.

I hum out some uncommitted affirmative because I had forgotten that he was holding the necklace at all (even if it is, undeniably, the nicest part of the outfit). He swipes a slow and gentle hand over the back of my neck, sweeping up any stray hairs. And the whole scene is undeniably domestic and precious, full of stray and gentle touches as he clasps the chain around my neck. “What’s _with_ you?” I ask, letting my head fall back onto his shoulder, all relaxed and elegant long lines draped over him.

He noses a line up my neck, following the vein on the side. “You really do have the prettiest neck in the whole world.” He praises, avoiding the question entirely. And, I guess, it’s easy to overlook the things that fans tell us all the time, the things we’re famous for. Junghyuk’s statuesque features were easy to breeze right by when they were always obscured by dumb smiles and blank confusion but he really was all sharp and even lines, the kind of thing someone would paint. And it’s been a long time since he could bury himself in my neck like this, easy to get distracted I guess.

“What did military _do_ to you?” I laugh. I’m not sure if I have a preference between sweet and reverent Junghyuk or submissive and awed Junghyuk but this certainly isn’t familiar (at least it’s been a decade or so since this was the norm).

He hums and I can feel it reverberate throughout my entire body. “Cut my hair, mostly.” The avoidance is obvious especially with my prying. I let him avoid it, though, because there are plenty of things I don’t want to say either.

I reach back to twine my fingers in his hair because it’s still long enough to twine my fingers in. “It’s growing back.” I assure him.

He scrapes his teeth teasingly along the side of my neck. “Has anyone marked you up since I left?” He asks, the casual question coming out heavier with the low growl in his voice.

No one had. It was hard to be discrete even when you were an idol on _hiatus_. And what I had with Junghyuk was mostly convenience. We’d been doing this for more than a decade and he knew my body better than even I did and there was nothing suspicious about two members of the same group being seen together and when he wasn’t a room over in the dorms, he was a floor away in our apartment complex. No one else was so easy, not even the other members (if the thought didn’t make me gag a little to begin with). It was always Junghyuk because he was really the only option (because he was the one I chose first, because he was always the one I trusted the most). “So possessive.” I wave off.”You were gone for two years, I could make other arrangements.”

He finally sinks his teeth down onto the sweet spot under my jaw and I hiss because it’s so good because he still remembers exactly where I’m the weakest. Because it’s like my favorite nights, the ones where I could get Junghyuk riled up too and he’d leave me covered in dark hickies and bright red nail marks on my hips and finger-shaped bruises. “I don’t think anyone did, I think you’re lying to me.” He whispers darkly.

“What do you think I did then? Wait for you to get back patiently like a good wifey?” I scoff.

“I think you spent a lot of time with your fingers buried in yourself thinking about me.” He accuses hotly, his breath leaving a damp trail down my neck.

“Oh?” I press smartly because I can’t think of anything to refute it.

His mouth doesn’t leave my neck but his hand wanders slowly up my thigh and it’s slow and lazy, still possessive somehow, like everything else. Junhyuk finally finds his way back into my life after two years of military and what does he do? He marks me. He marks me with his stupid clothes and his jewelry and his mouth and the smell of his cigarette smoke. His hand lazily traces over the tent I’m making in the robe and I hadn’t even noticed that I was this hard with just Junghyuk’s mouth on my throat. “Cute.” He appraises off-handedly.

I grit my teeth because I’m not going to submit to Junghyuk, I never had before. “Don’t you want me to call you a ‘worthless dog’ or tell you that your dick isn’t good enough to fuck me or something?” I ask, trying to get the situation back under my control, back in familiar territory.

“If you wanna.” He hums easily.

I bark out a laugh to cover up a slowly bubbling whimper. “That’s all for you and you know it.”

He clicks his tongue in acknowledgment. “I was thinking that I could open you up and you could just make those pretty noises for me.”

But it wasn’t really control that Junghyuk wanted. It wasn’t him ordering me around for the first time since we started fooling around. It was eager worship. We just skipped the part where I told him what I wanted, how I wanted to be worshipped this time. This time the praises rolled off his tongue without prompting, without the “sir” tacked on. He just let his hands do exactly what he knew I liked without waiting for me to tell him to. And I didn’t mind being worshipped at all.

It’s soft too, a kind of gentle worship, full of whispered suggestions and no commands. The hand on my back that leads me to the bedroom is more for the contact than the leading. The way he pushes me onto the bed is entirely playful and I only let myself bounce back because I’m giggling too much to stop and I want him wrapped around me again. Junghyuk doesn’t even undress me, he just unties the belt and lets me slip the robe off my shoulders.

He comfortably kneels in-between my thighs, his fingers slipping into the loose fabric of the thigh highs with wonder. “You have the skinniest fucking thighs in the universe, I swear, these shouldn’t be loose on you.” His fingers manage to more than half circle around the entirety of my thighs when he tries. “Did you stop eating without me there to cook for you?” He teases.

I swat at his head playfully. “They’ve always been like this, idiot.” I tangle my fingers in the short hair, not quite tugging but tight enough to remind him that I was in control. “And I can feed myself just fine.”

His finger tangles in the loose material of the lace, pulling it taut against my leg. “Then next time we won’t do the thigh highs.” He presses a soft and feathery kiss to my collarbone.

“Next time?” I scoff. “We won’t do this next time.” But there’s no real bite, I’m laughing through the entire statement. I don’t really know if there’s ever going to be a next time like this. It’s been years since Junghyuk pressed gentle and fleeting kisses to my skin like I was something that could so easily be broken. It’s been years since I wasn’t in control here, since neither of us were even _looking_ to be in charge. Junghyuk’s hands are delicate and soothing when they’re not marking me up (but they are frequently marking me up, his rare possessive streak making an appearance).

It’s romantic almost, our version of romantic at least. He holds me and nuzzles into me like this isn’t just fucking, like this isn’t just getting rid of that crackling tension that builds so easily between us. It’s not getting pinned against a wall or me calling him worthless or even him trying to prove that he can have me. It’s candlelight and rose petals—in spirit if not actually. And I’m thinking about the one time we did fuck on rose petals, a poorly thought out but sweet gesture from an overly romantic, young and starry-eyed Junghyuk. It was in some hotel in Hong Kong and we both smelled like too-strong rose and were covered in light pink crescent marks from where we had rolled over the petals for days. This time the crescent marks are red, all over my hips and match up to Junghyuk’s blunt nails.

We’re laughing more than we’re growling, always pressed close enough together that I can feel it as much as I can hear it. His hands keep tracing over the now-warm metal of the rose charm. And the stupidest, softest part of my heart knows that the necklace means something. He’s saying something that he can’t really say like we always are in moments that we can’t define like this. I’m saying something too, something beyond “I miss you,” something I can’t put into words even just for myself yet. I just know that I’m _letting_ Junghyuk have things and there are doors open in my mind and walls down in my heart that almost never are. 

When I cum, hiccupping puffs of air into Junghyuk’s neck, he winds his arms around me and strokes my hair until I come down. I choke on an “I love you” that I cover up with a fond chant of “Junghyuk, Junghyuk, Junghyuk” instead. He softly arranges me in a heap of weak limbs and overflowing emotions and wipes away the barely-dried cum on my stomach with his hoodie. I choke on an “I love you” that I bury in a lingering kiss instead. He lets me rest my head on his chest and wind our legs together when he gets back to bed without a teasing comment. I choke on an “I love you” and I just choke. It sits like a physical object in my throat. But it’s fine, we’re just reminiscing, just playing at something we can’t get anywhere else.

Junghyuk lights his cigarette on my bed (something _I_ don’t even do) and it looks elegant between his fingers, he really looks like something fake, something idealized. The smell is almost painfully familiar blanketing over me like something tangible. “What happened to not smoking on an empty stomach?” I breathe out easily.

“I’ll order us something later.” He offers, voice roughened by everything, all deep bass that reverberates through my body.

“So, you’re staying?” I ask, eyebrow cocked.

“You’re offering?” He looks back just as astonished.

I cast a pitying look to where his hoodie is lying on the floor next to my bed. “Your shirt’s already covered in cum. I won’t make you go out like that.”

He laughs and presses a smoke-stained kiss to my lips and I miss the scent, the taste, the everything so much I really do think about switching (but it’s Junghyuk I really miss and not the smoke).

Later in my bed, cleaned up but still mostly naked, with some delivery on the way, Junghyuk looks like he’s thinking. Not just thinking actually, he’s got that stoic and fierce determination that I rarely see outside of meeting rooms. I smooth my thumb over the slight furrow between his eyebrows. “You’re gonna wrinkle up your handsome face,” I scold, “that’s our moneymaker.”

The wrinkles disappear nearly instantly under my fingers. “I’m just thinking.” He responds vaguely.

I roll over, half on top of him and kick my legs in the air. “Hm?” I answer. “About what?”

“A new company,” he says casually, off-handedly, “one just for Shinhwa.”

And there are lots of things I saw coming. The break from SM was inevitable and made my stomach turn for years before our contract even ended. I saw Shinhwa continuing on well past the normal idol expiration date when I was still a young and starry-eyed kid. I always saw Junghyuk by my side forever whether he was annoying me or kissing me. But there were lots of things I never saw coming. A company just for Shinhwa never crossed my mind. The second album miraculously saving a group that was supposed to be quietly disbanded after a disastrous debut was a shock. Junghyuk following me from the dorms to a new apartment building was an almost unpleasant housewarming surprise. The way a bouquet of a hundred red roses, a birthday gift to a naïve 20-year-old that might’ve been in love or something close to it crept up in my life so frequently was absolutely unpredictable.

“Sounds like something for after everyone else gets discharged.” I wave off because he still will only barely tell me how _this_ legal battle is going.

“I like to tell you things first.” There’s a teasing smile playing on his lips and I don’t know what part of that is a joke but I don’t care either because there’s take out on its way and I’m already being pulled down by the natural draw between me and Junghyuk. He kisses me with a soft, guiding hand tilting my chin up and the other hand pushing the metal of the rose charm into my skin hard enough that it’ll leave an imprint.

\---------

I happen on the robe again, trying to dig a winter coat out of my closet while Junghyuk is on his honeymoon. The silk is still ice cold on my fingers. It’s still ugly, absolutely unwearable even in my own home. And it’s really lost its only purpose with Junghyuk on his honeymoon and everything. So this time I just trash it, not caring which bin it’s supposed to go in. I wonder, though, with the rose-pink silk running through my fingers, if roses still remind Junghyuk of me. Because the flowers at his wedding were dominated by carefully-chosen lilies. (And I wonder if that bouquet of a hundred red roses that some love-struck barely adult gifted someone he thought he loved still affected nearly every decision he made to this day.)

**Author's Note:**

> surprise! it's actually sad!  
> [tumblr](angelinmyheartt.tumblr.com) [cc](https://curiouscat.me/Nitzer)


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